This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_892762679_boundary Content-ID: <0_892762679@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII --part0_892762679_boundary Content-ID: <0_892762679@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> Content-type: message/rfc822 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-disposition: inline From: Win Boogie <WinBoogie@aol.com> Return-path: <WinBoogie@aol.com> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu Subject: Re: An Introduction (Significance?) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 13:29:17 EDT Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-04-16 05:51:13 EDT, you write: << How can anyone say who is the `best' writer of the Twentieth Century? Who has any authority to make such a judgement? I was pretty appaled about the idea that I would make claims about an entire country's literary opinions about James Joyce, and claiming the `Best Writer of the C20th' is a bit more momentous than that. Why does there *need* to be a `best' anyway ? It's like asking `which is the better painting, the Mona Lisa or Warhol's `100 Marilyns' ? The answer is, they are both good but both totally different. The very concept of `bestness' in the world of art is itself very tenuous. It all reminds me of the J.Evans Prichard method of determining a poem's True Greatness (for those of you who have seen `Dead Poet's Society' - and for those who haven't I greatly suggest you do!) >> " They give awards for that kind of music? I thought they just give earplugs. What's next? Greatest Nazi Dictator, Adolph Hitler?" -Woody Allen, Annie Hall Robert --part0_892762679_boundary--